04.06.10
7:30 p.m. CDT Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas
STATUS REPORT: STS-131-04
STS-131 MCC STATUS REPORT #04
HOUSTON – The seven member crew of Discovery is just hours from
joining the Expedition 23 crew aboard the International Space Station
as they work toward an early Wednesday morning docking with the
outpost.
The shuttle crew’s wakeup song at 7:21 p.m., “I Will Rise” by Chris
Tomlin, was played for Pilot James P. Dutton Jr., who will help guide
Discovery to the station’s Pressurized Mating Adapter 2 at 2:44 a.m.
Wednesday.
At midnight Commander Alan G. Poindexter and Dutton will fire shuttle
jets to refine the orbiter’s approach to the station. Mission
Specialists Stephanie Wilson, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenberger, Clayton
Anderson, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Naoko
Yamazaki will support them on the flight deck. The crew will be
docking the shuttle without radar because of the Ku-Band antenna
failure. They are trained to rendezvous and dock without radar.
At 1:42 a.m., after Discovery arrives at a point 600 feet directly
below the station, Poindexter will command the shuttle to slowly
rotate so that its underside is facing the station, and Expedition 23
Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineer Soichi Noguchi will
photo-document the shuttle’s heat shield tiles. That imagery will be
added to the video taken on flight day 2 and sent to the ground for
study by specialists looking for any damaged tiles.
Once leak checks are completed, the hatches between the vehicles are
scheduled to open at 4:41 a.m. Wednesday to begin joint operations.
With their arrival at the station, it will be the first time since
launch that the crew of Discovery can be seen by NASA television
viewers.
As the crew prepare for docking, Mission Specialist Rick Mastracchio
will prepare the spacesuits that will be used for the three planned
spacewalks for transfer to the station’s Quest airlock.
The next shuttle status report will be issued at the end of the crew
work day, or earlier if events warrant.
-end-